Turns of Fate
by Cassie Jamie
Summary: The darkness hiding the danger. Ben/Riley
1. Opening

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Ever. (Dang.)  
**Title:** Turns of Fate  
**Pairing:** Ben/Riley  
**Summary:**_The darkness hiding the danger._  
**Spoilers:** National Treasure I  
**Notes:** This is the beginning to a story that is 30 pages long in my word processor. It includes homophobia and Riley having a painful past; this is considered disability!fic, as a main character will lose the permanent use of a sense. If any of that is an issue, please do not read.

"_He who does not understand your silence_

_will probably not understand your words."_

- Elbert Hubbard -

He'd gone down the alleyway as a shortcut to his apartment, something he'd done a dozen times before. It was a faster route from the coffee shop than to go all the way around the block and given that he normally worked well into the night on his software programs, it was understandable that he wanted to get home in the shortest amount of time possible.

So he hadn't thought twice about it – an alleyway was an alleyway and aside from the cats that sometimes leapt from the dumpster at his head, he'd never been afraid to walk through it.

Riley never saw the guys coming, the darkness hiding the danger.

How they'd guessed – correctly – that he was gay, he would never know. How they'd found him and why they'd targeted him were other questions to which he'd never get answers; he was just another statistic, an incident of discrimination based on his sexuality.

And as he laid in the alley that night, a stagnant puddle by his head and his body aching from the beating, Riley clung to the amusement that he was both a statistic and celebrity before the darkness claimed him.


	2. Chapter One

"_We're so busy watching out for_

_what's just ahead of us that we don't take_

_time to enjoy where we are_."

- Calvin & Hobbs -

"Riley Poole," Ben said when the nurse looked at him. "I'm looking for Riley Poole."

He and Abigail had been criss-crossing the city for hours, wandering from police station to morgue to hospital on the hunt for their friend. They were exhausted and their bodies taut with the tension of the worried – Riley had been missing for hours, his home vacant and the coffee shop he preferred devoid of his presence. The staff there had at least been able to tell them that he'd left in the early morning, his laptop secure under his arm and his bag slung over one shoulder.

The police were less than helpful, telling them he had to be missing a minimum of thirty-six hours before they could accept a report and it had only been twenty-seven hours. _"How do you know he didn't just go to his girlfriend's or something?"_ they'd been asked by an officer who looked fresh out of college and Abigail herself had wanted to slap him.

"Are you a relative of Mr. Poole?" the nurse asked and the two breathed a sigh of relief. If she was presenting that question, then they'd found him.

"I'm Ben Gates," he answered, glancing back at Abigail. "I have his medical proxy... his power of attorney."

With a nod, the nurse clicked away at her computer. When she told them he was in the ICU, room 431, and directed them to the elevator bay, Ben felt his heart plummet through the floor: ICU meant critical. "The staff upstairs will allow you in to see him, but it will only be for a few minutes."

They didn't even say thank you as they turned and made their way from the front desk, minds running through scenario after scenario. Where had he been? What happened to him and lord, why hadn't he come over like they'd asked?

Dinner on Sunday, it was a tradition. Even after Abigail and Ben had broken up, they had remained friends and the trio always sat down to a night's meal together. That day he had begged off - _"The museum is on my ass over this. I'll be there next week, I promise."_ - needing to take the extra time to catch up on the work he'd skimped on while he'd had the flu.

The nurses' station was in the center of the ICU, a few feet from the elevators and Ben only needed to look past the staff lingering against the counter to see Riley's room. It was dim-lit and quiet, and he hated to think that for once in his life, Riley was involuntarily silent.

He snapped out of his reverie by a nurse calling him sir twice. Abigail ended up explaining why they were there when he couldn't make a coherent sentence, guiding him to a gang sink and helping him to disinfect his hands. By the time they produced the face masks, he was able to think again and Ben asked how bad it was, still hoping he would wake up from this nightmare.

"Mr. Poole," the woman started in a dry, clinical voice, "was beaten severely. He sustained multiple broken bones, tears in his liver and kidneys, and a fractured skull. There was some bleeding on his brain as well as swelling so the doctors were forced to operate to remove a piece of bone, allowing the tissue to have somewhere to go. As of right now he is in an induced coma until he is stable."

"He's not stable?"

"His lungs aren't functioning properly. We've had to resuscitate him twice now when he stopped breathing."

Ben only nodded at her words, not speaking out of fear of what he'd say to her. She was a nurse, for fuck's sake, and she was talking like Riley were an object. She'd said everything with no inflection, so monotone – so devoid of emotion. And he wanted to shake her in anger because Riley was worth more than indifference.

"We're trying to limit his exposure to outside bacteria right now, so we can only allow you ten minutes with him. One of us will come get you when time's up," the nurse (_Lynda J. _her name tag read with _I'm here to help_ written beneath in neat script)told them.

"Thank you," Abigail said.

The door to Riley's room slid open with a hydraulic hiss, the medicinal scent in the air hitting them almost immediately. It was sterile white walls and the steady beep of the heart monitor that greeted them.

On the day they had met, Ben had thought to himself that Riley was like an organized hurricane. He had wild hair to contrast his work-appropriate clothing and his speech was quick, words running together when he got excited, which differed with the order of his work station. Three computers labeled with their jobs had been running behind him, programs he'd written displaying his genius without him saying a word. What he'd lacked in stature, he'd made up for with a personality that was more vibrant than a Monet painting.

Now, though... Riley lay against crisp sheets, the bruises even more noticeable against the backdrop of white. Tape hid the normally mischief-filled blue eyes, and his lips were covered by the device holding the endotracheal tube in place. His head was swathed in clean gauze with only one spot of blood showing through and Ben paused to regain control of his emotions before noting the casts and pins that were holding his bones in place. One leg was in traction and his left arm was elevated on pillows, all five fingers in splints.

"Oh, Riley," Abigail breathed after her own shock wore off and she reached out to stroke the only available patch of skin. She wanted to tell him it was going to be alright, that she and Ben were there, because she was sure he could hear them despite his unconscious state, but she couldn't make her throat co-operate and instead she stood there at his bedside.

For his part, Ben remained rooted to his spot by the door, scared to get any closer than he was. He didn't trust himself to be able to let of Riley when they were ejected if he had a chance to hold his hand, touch his forehead. He wasn't even sure he was going to be able to leave the room as it was. What else would happen to Riley if someone wasn't there to watch him?

Somehow, they both managed to make themselves leave when the nurses came though. It was late and they were told they could return tomorrow. "His doctors will be here in the morning," it was said, "They'll be able to answer any more questions you have."

They thanked the staff by rote and on autopilot made their way from the hospital, never really comprehending where they were going until Ben opened the door to Riley's apartment, stumbling inside. Neither remarked when they crawled into Riley's bed and clutched at his pillows.

"_One measure of friendship consists not in the_

_number of things friends can discuss,_

_but in the number of things they need no longer mention_."

- Clifton Fadiman -

Doctors were incapable of explaining anything to the general public, Ben decided two hours after he and Abigail had arrived.

They'd walked in to find Riley's primary care physician (_Dr. Joseph Kayes, GP_) waiting at the nurse's station for them along with a neurologist, pulmonologist, Intensivist, and cardiologist. There were others apparently missing; Ben had sarcastically wondered how many 'ist's were working to keep Riley alive.

He'd been found, apparently, in an dirty alley between 18th and Champlain by a passerby only a few hours after he'd left the coffee shop. The police would want to talk to them, want to know if Riley had any enemies – Ben snorted as he thought of the hate mail and the obsessed letters they'd all received – and if not, who would be so angry with him they would assault him with a baseball bat?

"Look, Riley's a good guy. He's a little thick sometimes and he's pretty focused on his computer work, but he's not someone who sleeps around or tries to steal someone else's partner," Ben snapped. "We had thousands of people tell us we were fucking stupid or they hoped we died under our 'piles of cash' or that they wanted to marry us. It could be any number of people."

Abigail reached out to grab his wrist and pulled Ben back against the seat. "We can't tell you what happened, we really can't. Look, we just want to know if he's going to be alright."

Kayes leaned back, fingers resting on his clipboard and he looked almost bored as he told them, "As of right now, Mr. Poole is still in critical condition. Until the swelling in his brain reduces we can't say much of anything except that he's alive right now. If he can get through the next few days without too much trouble, he may make a full recovery, but until we bring him out of the coma we cannot safely say that he's escaped brain damage."

He half-tuned out after that, letting Abigail field the rest of the questions and hoping he didn't look as numb as he felt. God, Riley was only twenty-eight. No one should be talking about brain damage fifteen feet from his ICU room, where machines were keeping his lungs breathing, his heart beating, and his kidneys functioning. _He's too young for this_, Ben thought as his head fell into his hands.

They were telling him that youth was probably the only thing in Riley's favor when he muttered the sentiment aloud, but it brought him no solace.

It was after the doctors finally finished their spiel that they were given the clearance to spend thirty minutes with Riley, contingent upon their changing into sterile scrubs, and led away from the waiting area. They changed without a word or so much as a look at each other, their minds wrapped around the fact that the Riley they knew may have been gone forever. And if he was, who would care for him? His parents were both dead and his brothers had been lost in the mire of paperwork that accompanied closed adoptions – Riley had them and the money in his bank account, nothing more and nothing less.

The door opening sounded less mechanically than it had the night before, perhaps because they were both more awake or maybe because they were both focused on the man in the bed. It didn't matter and yet for some reason, Ben couldn't let go of it, standing there in a daze until Abigail called him softly.

She'd gone without pause to Riley's side and resting up against the railing, arms crossed over each other with one hand petting his forehead gently.

"He can probably hear us," she told him. "At least come say hello to him, Ben. He needs to know we're here."

Logically the handful of steps between the door and the bed only took a few seconds to cross, but it felt like hours when Ben dragged himself over. His fingers twitched as he clasped them around Riley's wrist, his head coming down to rest against the mattress. His breath ghosted over Riley's bruised fingers, around the IV site, and Ben wondered if somewhere in his mind Riley felt the tickle of it.

Later, Abigail would tell him that he'd told Riley that they were there with him and they weren't going to leave him. That they would be beyond the door when the nurses kicked them out and they'd be back as soon as they were allowed.

But at that moment, Ben didn't acknowledge that he was speaking. His mind was trapped in a horrific nightmare, a movie he'd made himself out of his own concepts that played like a black and white every time he closed his eyelids. He could picture Riley, his dark-wash jeans and Old Navy tee-shirt beneath a blazer from Target Clearance, with his laptop in hand and a coffee cup in the other, walking home. Ben didn't know for sure that the iPod's headphones had been settled in his ears but it was more than likely they had been.

It was that image of the younger man – innocent and unsuspecting – that had formed in Ben's brain. Riley, just going on with his life, caught in the crosshairs of someone else's rage and Ben choked to realize that his friend had probably screamed and begged and no one heard a thing. Riley had probably called for help between two apartment buildings, but no one even picked up a phone to call emergency services.

The feminine hand in his hair brought him back to present day. "Half an hour's up," Abigail told him quietly, unsettlingly, like she wanted to stall for time and knew she couldn't. They had to leave for two hours while they cleaned up Riley's bandages and linens, then they could stay for an hour.

Increasing the time with him didn't soothe Ben at all, not in the face of the realization that there had to have been someone who heard Riley or seen something. It had been early morning, people had to have been home in bed or watching infommericals on how to enlarge their undersized penis.

Ben managed a few bites of a sandwich Abigail brought him by closing his eyes and ignoring that the cheese was the wrong color, sipped at the flat soda he pushed toward him. He tried to not make it obvious that he was checking his watch almost continuously; time did not care if he wanted it to speed on, but how he wanted the seconds to flicker by until it was time for them to return to Riley's side.

Lost in thought, he didn't notice the two officers who sat down in four-top's empty chairs. It was Abigail's groan that made him take notice of their new companions and he looked down, steeling himself to answer the questions he knew would be asked.

"Mr. Gates, Miss Chase," the larger man said. "I'm Officer Rhodes and this is Officer Owens. Dr. Kayes said you would be available to talk for a few minutes."

He nodded, though he cursed the doctor under his breath, and as expected, they asked the same questions the doctors had asked earlier: was there someone who'd want to harm Riley? "_Only everyone who wanted the Knights Templar treasure to never be found or wanted it for themselves._" Was there someone recently who'd wanted to harm him? "_We get, minimum, two dozen letters a month telling us we're dead people walking._"

Rhodes' patience was clearly thinning and when Ben gave him another sarcastic reply ("_There might be someone who didn't know about our connection to the treasure in Siberia. Of course they probably think the czar is still in charge._"), he stood up. His hands clenched around the notebook he carried, pages of light paper sullied with writing. "You clearly don't want to help your friend so we'll just be on our way," he said, starting to turn away.

The sigh stopped him and he looked back to see Ben waving him toward the chair. "I can't tell you anything more about who would come after him, because I don't know who would, okay? Riley's smart, creative, and dedicated to his job. He likes to write fiction books for kids even though he'll never admit to it and he's a great cook."

It felt like the flood gates had opened and Ben felt like his heart was pouring out of his mouth with each passing second.

"He likes to dress nicely since he couldn't as a kid. His parents were poor as fuck and couldn't afford the good stuff so he lived on church handouts until he had a job of his own and when they died, he got himself emancipated, got an apartment, and took care of himself. He went to college on money he worked overtime for, got a job at a good company, and left it all behind because I asked him to. He left his boyfriend to come hunt treasure with me on nothing other than my word – who could look at a guy like that and want to beat him to death?" Ben asked, unable to fathom it himself.

Finding out Riley's past hadn't been an easy task. It had entailed many nights of beer and poker and Ben had told him flat out that he hadn't thought his friend had suffered through a lost childhood. He'd been an adoptee and known it as long as he could remember; his two brothers had gotten adopted as well but he had been too young to know their names or their faces, content with the fact that they had their own families to love and be loved by.

"You said he left his boyfriend?"

Ben shrugged. "Yeah, but they were having problems anyway and it was amicably." He'd been there at the move out, helping Riley to carry boxes from the old apartment to his new one.

Owens made a face and ran a hand through his hair, looking at his partner. He was definitely agitated, but to his credit remained there while Rhodes set about telling them that the case would be transferred to the special victims department. "If there's a reason to transfer it back to our unit, we'll continue with it, but until it's ruled out that this wasn't the result of a hate crime, the SV unit will follow up."

"Wait a minute, he's gay so it gets thrown to another department?" Ben felt his blood start to boil in his veins. The world tried to say things were changing, that equality was the norm instead of the exception, only to slap them all in the face with the reality; he clenched his hands on his lap, wishing he could shake sense into people.

"Actually, there's been a few incidents previously with some guys going after members of the gay community. We don't particularly know how they're getting their targets 'cause there's no commonalities, but they've been beating the crap outta people with pipes, canes, sticks, and bats." A minute slipped by and he added, "SV has been handling the case since we realized the pattern."


	3. Chapter Two

"_The only trouble with resisting temptation_

_is that you may not get another chance."_

- Anon -

On the fifth day, Abigail called her job to say she would be taking another day off and she was told either she would be at her desk on time or clean it out before close of business. And while she did not necessarily need the money given the finder's fee she had received, she hated to be idle. Work kept her mind sharp and it kept her from becoming sedentary, so with a promise to Ben that she would be at the hospital as soon as she was done, Abigail left him to stand vigil at Riley's side.

His condition had been downgraded from Critical to Serious though he remained under the watchful eyes of the ICU staff, where he'd stay until they were sure that Riley was safe enough to be removed from round-the-clock care. While he would receive such elsewhere in the hospital, the ICU had a nursing staff that monitored fewer patients per person – they were better equipped to monitor Riley for the smallest of changes.

"Abigail will be here soon," Ben told Riley, relaxing in the provided chair. It was the most uncomfortable thing he'd ever had the displeasure of sitting in and he thought that perhaps it was a prerequisite for hospitals to have furniture people hated so they'd leave quicker.

"The cops found your laptop in a dumpster at the end of the alley. It's trashed if the garbage juice that leaked out of the damn thing is anything to go by but they were able to get some of your hard drive recovered. Guess they wanted to make sure that you didn't have anything hidden on there that would help them find the guys that attacked you..." he trailed off and ran a hand through his hair. "Anyway, they printed off a hard copy of your latest draft of 'Sarah & Jade' so you'd at least have that."

It had been a source of endless amusement for Ben when he discovered Riley's penchant for writing leaned toward teen fiction. He'd created for his books a universe that was on the cusp of destruction, the always-female lead characters the eyes through which the reader saw that world and how the girls fought to balance evil with good. It was a simple concept, albeit one that he managed to convey well enough to have collected a dedicated fanbase.

For his part, Ben had considered it strange for Riley who was, at heart, a computer geek to create those kids of books. Then, one day, his friend had turned to him and firmly told him to knock it off or find himself a new person to find the Charlotte. "_I got made fun of as a kid, I got made fun of in college, and I got made fun of by fucking editors – I won't take it from you,_" he'd said firmly, showing for the first time that he could stand up for himself when he needed to.

He lapsed into silence, listening to the machines beep rhythmically and the ventilator timing out the breaths it pushed into Riley's lungs. It was a strange symphony, but a calming one that reminded him that Riley was still with him. Ben tightened his grip on his best friend's wrist for a few seconds then released it, and exhaled hard.

"I'm sorry about the other night," he whispered, hoping Riley could hear him and he wouldn't have to say this all over again when the man came out of the coma. "I think I knew for a long time how I've felt. Hell, I think I fell a little in love with you the day I saw you in that cubicle. You looked so happy... so... alive. And God, you were laid-back, like the world could end right then and there and you'd just roll with it.

"I didn't want you to leave angry. I know I should have stopped you and explained but I guess I thought if I gave you time to cool off I could tell you what I'd meant." Ben stood and leaned over the railing, pressing his lips against the unblemished spot above Riley's left eye. "I love you. Very much, but I'm twelve years older than you."

He could practically hear the argument, as though Riley had connected to him mentally. Ben kissed the man's forehead again, smiling against the warm skin, pulling back to say, "I know – age is a number and ten years isn't that much, but I can't stop thinking that you'd be better off with someone who doesn't spend most of their day in libraries and classrooms." Laying his head down beside Riley's, Ben closed his eyes and settled his hand on his friend's chest, feeling the inhalations beneath his fingertips.

How Ben managed to fall asleep like that, even he couldn't explain but it was how Abigail found him when she arrived an hour later. The scrub pants were taut at his back and the top hitched up to show a strip of white skin, his chest pressed hard into the metal bar which had to be painful yet Ben continue to snore annoyingly.

Abigail shared a smile with the nurse who came in a few minutes later as she continued to stand on the other side of the glass door. Women were prone to coo at acts of romanticism, she'd said once before she and Ben had broken up, because it reminded them of what they wanted in their own lives. And as she watched over the scene, waiting for the same nurse to bring her a blanket they could wrap over Ben's hunched form, Abigail realized that she was still a little in love with the man despite all that had driven her away.

Moving out had been one of the hardest things in the world though Ben had offered her the house, time and time again until the day she'd finally turned to him and told him "_It's not the house I want!_" At the time, she'd not been sure what she'd meant by it, but Abigail knew now that she'd been chasing after what they could have been and not what they had been.

"Miss Chase? Abigail?" The nurse prodded from her side.

"Yes? Yes, sorry, I guess I'm a little more tired than I thought," she admitted sheepishly, as she took the sterile, plastic-covered blanket. The crinkle of the encasing made her heart squeeze; she'd forgotten for just a moment where she was and why she was there.

A few minutes went by while she washed up and changed, holding the still-wrapped blanket to her chest and crossing her arms over it as though it were a cotton shield. Abigail slipped into the room with her arms still safely guarding her against the sadness and she moved around the bed, to etch the sight before her into her memory. Though it hurt in her gut, the corners of her lips curled upwards and pulling the plastic open, shaking it out.

Just as the heavy material touched Ben's shoulders, he started and blinked rapidly until his vision cleared. "Abigail?"

"You know, one day, I will get you to call me Abby," she whispered. She pushed him back into the chair and yanked the blanket's edges together, wrapping him in it. "You should go home. I'll stay with him until visitor's hours end."

"Only have another hour," he said with a yawn. "Doctor's supposed to come by soon anyway." His words were negated by the closing of his eyes and his lax limbs while he fought to stay awake. Aside from the times the nursing staff had kicked him out to change bandages, bedclothes, or do whatever else they had to, Ben hadn't left Riley's side and he didn't intend leave until he'd talked with the doctor.

Admittedly, Ben knew he'd stayed with his friend long enough and that talking to the doctor really was moot; the nurses had, beyond that first night, been good about talking to them, telling them the ups and downs. Still, Ben knew he would sleep far better if the last thing he heard was something optimistic.

But he would not get that small solace.

"_Be who you are and say what you feel_

_because those who mind don't matter_

_and those who matter don't mind."_

- Dr. Seuss -

Patrick Gates was not a man for unconventional things. He still believed in the sanctity of marriage and the belief in a God that watched over them all with a paternal eye, so when he'd first listened to Ben's questions on his own sexuality at the age of twenty, Patrick had sent him to their church. "_Talk to the priest,_" he'd said, confident that all would be well.

And for a while, he had believed that baldfaced lie. Even when Ben called him, his voice tight as he told his father that the engagement was off and Abigail was moving out and could be bring Riley to dinner tomorrow? After all, it was hardly like Ben had started wearing hot pants and redecorated in rainbow after she'd gone to her new place.

"They, uh, they're pretty sure that Riley's... He's probably deaf," Ben said as he sat quietly on the sofa, his elbows pushed on his knees and his head hung down.

It was that pitiful image – his boy grieving for someone who he had clearly given his heart – that shattered that lie and Patrick was faced with a choice. Granted it should have been a painfully easy one, because Ben was his flesh and his blood and he was more than who he went to bed with, only he had a lifetime of the church's teachings behind him.

He'd managed to control himself enough to get Ben up the steps to his bedroom and saw to it the man was asleep, then drifted back into the living room with his mind awash in thoughts. Societal ideas dueled with what he knew in Ben and what he'd always wanted for his son: the kind of life with children that ran him absolutely ragged and a big yard that he had to huff and puff just to do a few feet of mowing, while a beautiful woman teased him from a long white porch. It was the life he'd had for a time and how he cherished those memories...

Thinking back to the first time Patrick met Riley, he had been unimpressed by the boy. His hair was a mess and his clothing had been a stark contrast to the formal wear worn by Ben and Abigail. He'd dug into the lukewarm pizza like it were the first meal he'd had in months, never actually saying thank you for it. Riley had simply seemed a child in an adult body, something Patrick loathed.

Lord but he'd imagined that Ben's choice in friends was less than worthy of him.

The revision had come just hours later when they'd stood together in the treasure room, admiring the sparkle of the fire-lit gold, and the steady tick-tick-tick in the room set a cadence for their move toward the decrepit stairs at the far end. They'd not spared a single thought for the noise; they were standing in a room filled to the brim with the artifacts of ancient cultures, the first time they'd been seen in more than two hundred years.

"_Ben!_" Riley had shouted when all of a sudden the ticking penetrated his consciousness and he'd leapt toward his friend without any hesitation. The surprise of the yell had started Ben, who'd turned to face Riley and ended up with an armful of the younger man as they crashed to the ground and a volley of stones fell from the ceiling, landing in places too perfect to be anything other than intentional.

A booby trap, likely meant to thwart anyone who came across the treasure from making it to the stairs. And Riley had protected Ben on instinct, thinking not of his own welfare but of another's. Patrick had approved of that and said as much while they sat in the pews of Trinity Church, waiting for the FBI to meet them.

The slide of the front door as it popped open made Patrick rise from his spot in front of the fireplace where the last glowing embers began to die and smoke, greeting Abigail who handed him two heavily filled grocery bags. "I'll bet anything he's got in the fridge is becoming sentient by now," she said with a small smile, lugging along her own bags.

Together they unloaded the bags in silence, broken by Patrick's snort when he lifted up the last bag only to find that it was in fact filled with greasy, delicious Chinese food. "Asian Garden?" he asked, sniffing the carton of General Tso's and delightedly snatching an eggroll.

"Best artery clogging meals this side of the Anacostia." She nodded as she hipchecked the utensil drawer shut, holding two plates with clean pub glasses on top with spoons and forks inside of them. "I haven't really felt the urge to cook for myself and I doubt that Ben has either," she commented and scooped a helping of fried rice onto her plate.

Patrick snorted; he was sure that the last thing on his son's mind was food. It was in the Gates' family make up, the man swore, to forgo anything that was actually needed like food, sleep, and showers when the person they loved was in danger. It was just what they did, love driving them to extreme measures.

The shock of it hit him hard, like a slap in the face: Ben had not just given his heart to Riley, he'd fallen in love with the younger man. He was sick with worry and fear and exhausted to nearly the point of collapse and Ben was _in love_.

He sat his plate down with a delicate clatter, resting his hands on the counter's edge and leaning forward over it all, saying, "I can't get my mind around it. I know it's there – it's staring me in the face, but I just... I can't, Abigail."

"I don't understand," she said, confused as to what had gotten into the elder man. She'd never assume that Patrick was anything less than intelligent, astute, yet she knew that he tended to ignore the things that could cause him potential upset. It was his way and while it had been a source of consternation between father and son, Abigail had found a fondness for him in it.

"You don't have to protect him. I'm not angry. I think I'm confused," he confessed. It was something he hated to say because confusion intoned a lack of comprehension, and he comprehended the situation. He merely couldn't understand it and there was a subtle difference, only Patrick wasn't sure how to explain it right then.

Her brow furrowed as she tried to grasp what he was trying to say. Abigail made no assumptions about the source of the man's confusion, aware that he could simply be asking about what happened to Riley in spite of what her gut was saying. "Patrick?"

"Ben's gay!" He exclaimed without preamble and tightened his grip on the counter top when he stumbled over the second word. Just three letters yet it was like someone had shoved a knife in his belly and was slowly twisting it, back and forth as though widening the wound.

The murmur came from their side, Ben standing in the archway between kitchen and living room. "Shit." He'd gone pale, his dark-ringed eyes making him look deathly ill; Patrick kicked himself internally. His boy needed sleep, not discussion, not at twelve-thirty at night. It would certainly keep until morning and he said as much, gently telling Ben, "Go back to bed.

"I'm not tired," he said in a slur, slumping down into the nearest chair. "Dad?"

"You have to rest, son," Patrick ordered with numb lips. He didn't know what else to say, what else to do to take away some of the sadness. It was a parent's prerogative to want to see their child healthy and happy, and when their child suffered, it sometimes took everything in them not to reach out with the promise that they would fix it. Right now, he knew that short of a time machine, Ben's dejection would continue seeing as there was no way for Patrick to fix it.

"Nah, I'm fine." The yawn made Patrick smile, thinking over how stubborn Ben was. Sometimes it was the only reminder he had of Ben's mother, how they both had always dug in their heels when they felt it necessary.

Still, he patted Ben's shoulder and kissed his hair and told him, "You'll be of no use to Riley if you're in the hospital too. Go to bed, sleep. I'm not going to run away in the night." He hefted Ben to his feet and pushed him toward the stairs, banishing him from the kitchen until morning with the instruction to do whatever he needed to do to not emerge from his bedroom for at least six hours.

Once the sound of the door closing and the bed bouncing from his plop into it reached them through the floorboards, Abigail looked at Patrick and she knew her eyes were filled with worry. Albeit he'd handled Ben's sudden appearance with finesse and care, she still worried for his reaction now that he'd said allowed what he'd most likely feared.

"It's funny. I think I knew it all along, but in a way I didn't either." He'd spoken while reaching into the fridge for a beer, offering her a bottle as well and was unsurprised by the rejection. Patrick kept the second bottle anyway, sipping at the amber liquid, telling her, "They say parents always know. I guess in a way we do. We just block out the parts we don't want to accept, but this isn't exactly something I can ignore, is it?"

"No, it's not. Whether or not Ben realizes it, I think we both know that Ben's going to bring Riley home here as soon as the hospital says he can and Riley's not going to leave," she replied, no hint of doubt in her mind or her voice, and Abigail went on, "And unless you plan to ignore Riley altogether, I'd say it's unlikely that you can live in denial, Patrick."

He nodded, the tiniest bit amused by her candid answer. "True. Quite true," he sighed and leaned back against the counter he'd grasped earlier.

"_Turn out the light_

_And what are you left with?"_

- Aqualung -

Time seemed to pass so slowly for Ben that the next month felt more like a year, waiting as the doctors finally began easing back the medications in Riley's system. They'd explained that they would bring him back to consciousness by reducing the sedatives and painkillers that were keeping him in the coma, the swelling in his brain gone.

Ben simply hadn't expected it to take as long as it was.

"It's been two days," he remarked to the doctor the next time the man came around. Abigail's glare was the only thing that stopped him from letting his impatience truly show, and she asked if there was anything they could do to help speed the process.

"I wish I knew myself," Kayes answered. "With head injuries, it could be a few minutes or it could be several more days. He could be keeping himself unconscious for some reason or it could be that since he can't hear us talking, he doesn't realize what's going on." He crossed his arms and told them, "The best advice I can give you is just to keep waiting. If he still hasn't at least made some gesture toward waking, we'll take a little more off the pain meds."

With a last initialing of the chart in his hand, the doctor turned and left, sparing not one single glance back at the duo. He disappeared into another room; Abigail made a face at the vacant space he'd occupied seconds earlier. "Right. Riley's not awake so let's use pain to shock him awake," she muttered, annoyed.

Her friend only shrugged, less disturbed by the medical professions methods than the reality that when Riley did come to, they would have to tell him that the beating had rendered him into a world of silence. It would be like giving punishment to an innocent man and Ben reached out to run a finger along the still-colorful knuckles.

The same thought would flit through his mind over the course of the next three days anytime he looked at Riley's defiantly closed eyes. While the anxiety of the wait made Ben sick to his stomach at times, he was grateful for the reprieve.

And, on the morning the doctors would have lowered the amount of morphine dispensed to him, Riley wiggled his toes, stretched his fingers and his eyes popped open. No preamble or warning – it happened all at once and before Ben could alert a person to the change in his status, Riley's ventilator started screaming as he fought to breath on his own.

Kayes had explained that his lungs, torn and bruised, had been overstressed by the bronchitis he'd recovered from (and Ben was so kicking his ass for saying it was the flu) as well as the beating, thus making it difficult to wean him from the vent. As it appeared now, however, that idea had been kicked in the pants and the nursing staff scurried into the room, knowing words were useless and helpless to explain what was going on. They simply rested hands on his shoulders until Riley understood he had to calm.

From her vantage point, Abigail could see the instant Riley realized he couldn't hear the noise of the machines nor the voices of the women talking at him. She felt the tears rise up as he weakly lifted a hand and pressed a finger to his ear, tugging it lightly and even though he was clearly groggy, she could see that he was panicking.

Abigail grabbed for the pad next to the room's sink and wrote in sloppy script, flinging it to Ben who sighed at the words and held it a bare foot from their friend's face. Slowly, the panic was replaced, though she wasn't sure that the sadness there was any improvement.

It took a few minutes for Riley to comprehend what he needed to do before the tube was pulled from his throat, an oxygen mask taking its place and Ben quickly took the hand that flopped onto the bed. He had his mouth open to speak, snapping his jaw shut with a mental kick. Instead he lightly squeezed Riley's hand and lifted it to his lips, pressing a soft kiss there while he tried to ignore the glittery look in Abigail's eyes.

He wasn't sure if it were happiness or tears, but either way Ben wasn't sure he could take either at that moment. Right now, his entire being was focused on Riley who looked terrified and sick, like his entire world had just fallen apart at the seams.

While the staff busied themselves, Ben brought his other hand down to rest on Riley's shoulder, fingers unconsciously rubbing circles against the starched gown. Someone passed him a damp washcloth after a few minutes and was told, "He'll probably appreciate a bath."

The 'by you' remained, appreciatively, unspoken.

He'd only gotten so far as to run the cloth over both of Riley's arms and a cursory swipe down his chest when Kayes appeared. Ben had swapped to the leg that wasn't swathed in plaster, long strokes taking away only a day's worth of sweat, when they began detaching Riley from various monitors and transferred others.

"What's going on?" he demanded, soothed by Abigail's slender hand on his wrist.

"They need to take Riley for a few tests, Ben. It's all right," she said and tightened her grip on him as the bed itself was wheeled from the room. Riley's arm flipped over the railing, reaching toward empty space and if it hadn't been for her hold, Ben would have gone straight for his friend and no force on Earth would have stopped him.

The room was empty then and Ben stood, tiredly looking around like a lost little boy.


	4. Chapter Three

"_Risk must be undertaken because the_

_greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing."_

- Anon -

"He is in a mood," Nurse Jeanine yelled to Ben when she saw him slip into the ward. Riley, despite his now-normal sullen disposition, had become one of her favorite patients in the weeks following his transfer from the intensive care unit. She had sat down to coffee with both he and Abigail one afternoon when Riley was particularly ornery, telling them that she'd seen many people do the same when faced with the loss of a sense including her own brother.

"Great!" he shot back with a smile and walked into Riley's room, a bag with dinner hanging off his forearm and a book in one hand. Ben set down both on the nearby rolling table and turned to face the irritated man in the bed, who had both arms crossed over his chest and his mouth twisted in a frown.

They'd gotten into a pattern with Ben arriving at the hospital after he finished his classes for the day, bringing with him something he'd picked out of the Barnes & Noble bargain section and a meal from a randomly-chosen restaurant. He'd stay until visiting hours came to a close while carrying on a written conversation with Riley as well as grading papers or tests. After six, when Abigail finished her desk work, she would join them and they would share the contents of plastic containers and paper take-away boxes, chatting about their day.

_How was physio today?_ He jotted down, saying it aloud as well.

_Fine._

Ben sighed at the word. It had become Riley's favorite answer to all types of questions and even Patrick, who had visited twice, had remarked on the fall in the man's vocabulary. While Riley's occupational and speech therapists had said it was expected ("_He has to adapt to a whole new life. It's hard for someone who has never had this kind of disability before._") and that he would eventually move on.

Still, it was a harsh reminder of Riley's new path in life and he hated that; Riley valued his independence and without his hearing, he could no longer drive his beloved Ferrari or any other car. He could no longer hear the orchestra at the symphony hall, a place he loved more than any other. He couldn't hum along with the surround sound stereo while he tapped word after word on his laptop and Ben teased him from the apartment's small kitchen.

_Just fine? No cursing at the staff today?_

The smirk that graced Riley's lips was close to the old ones that he used to give so freely. And what Ben wrote next made the smirk widen and the younger man's eyes spark with life.

_Doctors said that if you agree to come home with me, you can get out of here sooner._

Making the offer to watch over Riley while he recovered had been one of the easiest things in the world to do; he hadn't hesitated in the least when he'd spoken with Kayes, telling the man that it was in Riley's best interests to be in a place he knew, a place he felt safe.

Of course, Ben knew that Riley coming to the house meant that he'd been responsible for re-arranging his schedule for the spring semester – something the university administration was definitely going to bitch about – to fit around Riley's physical therapy, psychotherapy, and ASL appointments. Abigail and Patrick would help, but Ben wanted to be the one to help with the nitty-gritty parts of Riley's recovery and be there when his friend would come down hard on himself. Which would inevitably happen, whether or not people realized it.

_You're not kidding?_

Shaking his head, Ben grinned and leaned over the bed to kiss Riley's temple, happy to see the brightness in the blue eyes. He managed to tamp down on the urge to whisper "I love you," instead using one of the new signs he'd learned and pressed his thumb, forefinger and pinky into Riley's shoulder.

The shiver ran down Riley's spine, confusion flitting over his features. _Ben?_

_It's okay. We have to talk about this anyway._ Gates scribbled in reply, knowing that his admission months earlier while Riley was comatose had simply been practice – he needed to say it again, put the whole of his heart behind it and make Riley see how Ben's fears had colored his hopes.

With his heavy pen in hand, Ben started writing, fast loops and weaves and he stopped at one point to decide how best to say what he needed. One hand swiped over his brow as he thought; it was more difficult than he imagined to write down what had been so easy with the spoken word. However, Ben knew he couldn't leave too much room for Riley to question what he was saying. Where he could have once kept talking until Poole forcibly listened, he knew that a pair of closed eyes or a turn of the head could block out any explanation.

He finished without a flourish, pushing the pad back to Riley and waited while he read it. Ben knew his friend's ASL teacher would berate him if she found out that he'd not used the instance to practice Riley's lipreading skills, but he was sure neither of them was in the mood. They only wanted to repair the damage done to their friendship and perhaps move forward.

_Don't screw us out of something good because you're scared or because of age._ A one sentence answer delivered with the most pleading eyes that Ben had ever seen.

_I won't. But we're not starting anything until you're on your feet and then we're going slow._

Ben, given the amount of time he'd had to think since the diagnosis of Riley's deafness, had made the deal with himself that he was done worrying. If anything came of this thing between them, then he would be happy with it but he'd also promised himself that he wouldn't let it be some sort of rebounding issue. Riley needed someone there to love and support him, only he would question anyone who came into his life while he recovered.

Abigail joined them shortly thereafter, amused by both men's faces, like they were children caught with their hands in the cookie jar. She quickly remarked, "Well I see all four hands..."

The pillow Riley threw at her landed solidly against her face and Ben snickered when she stuck out her tongue in response. It was the first real instance of teasing between the two; they'd always reacted to each other like siblings than friends, and Ben had missed the volley of jokes and barbs they'd traded so easily.

"Alright, boys, feed me," she declared, signing along with her words. Ben was quite jealous of the ease with which she had picked up the language, having ranted about it in the safety of his home after their first lesson. She'd tried to appeal to his logical side, pointing out that she'd had to learn a whole new language earlier in life so a third was nothing, but he wouldn't be placated and it continued to irritate him.

For his part, Riley was having just as hard a time comprehending the signs and connecting them to the ones they represented. It was a regular battle with the woman who was trying to teach him, at times accepting it and others, angrily refusing to participate. She'd luckily taken it all in stride and kept on trying to get him to form the letters and signs, never letting his outbursts stop her.

He fisted his right hand and lifted it into the air, bending it back and forth, saying yes and grabbing the utensils Ben passed him while Abigail looked greedily into the paper bag. She licked her lips theatrically as she pulled out the single serving containers of lasagna, baked ziti, and stuffed shells. Three breadsticks and garlic knots jammed into tin foil followed and Ben double checked the door, ensuring that no one was about to ambush them.

With a smirk from Abigail, the trio tucked into their dinner and only later, after Ben had crawled into bed, did he recognize that their silence had been a comfortable one.

"_The manner in which one endures what_

_must be endured is more important than_

_the thing that must be endured."_

- Dean Acheson -

With both Riley's left arm and leg weak from not being used, it was impossible to get to his fourth floor apartment under his own power. The elevator was broken (again) and his cell phone was now useless as anything more than a paperweight so sitting in the lobby while Ben packed his bags was out. He had a few changes of clothing at Ben's; he wouldn't have to walk around naked, but just the same, Riley wanted more than a few pairs of lounge pants and long-sleeved henleys.

He wanted his worn in sweats, his heavy feather-down blanket, and his penguin slippers with the pom-pom eyes. And while his work laptop had become a broken piece of garbage water dispensing shit, Riley did not lack in other fully functioning computers that could amuse him while he was alone. He had movies abound that had their subtitles option written in tiny print on the back of the cases.

The amassed collection of CDs filled a large tower case, a taunt even in memory, and he couldn't decide a better fate for them: burning, flinging them like frisbees into the river, or selling them. No matter what, they were a pointless item to own.

In the end, Ben had promised they would return when Riley's moron landlord had the building in somewhat functioning order. Lord knew that once the elevator was fixed, something else would break – it was a cycle Ben usually mocked mercilessly, usually when Riley ended up on his doorstep because he had no heat or hot water – but at least the two would be able to pack up some of the things he would need.

"Where's the suitcases?" Patrick asked when the car pulled up to the garage. He'd gotten there a few minutes earlier, recruited by his son to help move furniture and set up one of the three first floor bedrooms. Riley would be wheelchair bound for a few weeks yet even though his leg was technically healed and his arm had been transferred from cast to brace, making it imperative that he had room to maneuver the chair.

"Don't have them," Ben answered, popping open the passenger door before opening the trunk. "Elevator's down for repair, if the landlord ever calls to get it repaired, and getting him up four flights didn't seem like a grand old time. So Riley's stuck in whatever clothes of his are here already and my historical documentary DVDs which he has already damned to hell."

Riley made a face, knowing what Ben was saying, and flipped him off once Ben ducked back around to his side of the car. "Asshole," he said, signing out each letter.

"I prefer jackass, thank you," Gates shot back, as he locked the wheels and went back to the trunk. Between the stop at the convenience mart on the way home, needing to buy Riley the underwear and socks he wouldn't of had otherwise, and the bags he'd left the hospital with, both hands were full. "Dad, you want the bags or you want to push Riley?"

"I can take Riley," he smiled, considering it a step. He'd decided after a few weeks of thinking, that rejecting his son wasn't an option but rejecting his religion wasn't either. Catholicism left little wiggle room for such beliefs, yet seeing how happy Ben was pushed hard at his heart. So as he fought to balance a lifetime of the church's teachings with this new part of his life, Patrick opted to take each day one at a time.

There was flicker in Riley's eyes that Patrick almost couldn't place, heart a bit heavy when he realized it was fear. He patted the younger's shoulder reassuringly, and took hold of the handles to propel him forward, knowing Riley was not supposed to be out in the chilly winter air for too long.

Inside the house, Ben was surprised and pleased to find that his father had started a fire in both fireplaces, warming the great room and lighting it in oranges and reds. He slipped into the guest room while Patrick set to helping Riley out of his heavy winter coat, hoping to have a few minutes to put away the items in the bags. He knew his friend would be safe with his father, though a mite uncomfortable – Riley knew Patrick was struggling with regards to his relationship with Ben.

He turned to head back out into the room and heard the unmistakable noise of Riley's chair, the wheels squeaking with every full revolution. It was something he'd started doing at the hospital between his physiotherapy appointments: pacing. Before they would release him, Riley had to show that he could adequately move his chair, even with his arm sore and braced, in case of an emergency. "_I don't intend to leave him alone,_" Ben had pointed out when they had truly started forcing the issue and was given the reply, "_It's more a psychological issue, Mr. Gates. He just needs to know he can do this on his own._"

Finally selecting an oversized plush sofa, Riley locked the wheels in place and started to move himself and his still-sore left side into it.

Ben walked over to him as he struggled to bear enough weight on his right hand to lift him upwards. After the second time he fell back into the leather of the wheelchair, Ben tapped his shoulder and asked, "Need help?" in stumbling sign language; at least he was getting better at the signs themselves and not spelling out each and every word.

"Yes, please," Riley replied and reached up to set his hands on Ben's shoulders while the other's hands slid into his armpits. He watched Ben's lips, knowing the minute the tip of his tongue peeked out that Ben was going to lift him up and he would have to pitch himself sideways.

"Thanks."

Ben shrugged, smiling. "It's what I'm here for," he said and took Riley's hand in his own, pressing a kiss to the back. Affection was something Riley would always have difficulty accepting Ben knew, but it would be a lie if he said he didn't enjoy the blush that crept up Riley's neck. He leaned forward to rest his cheek momentarily against Riley's head, glad that they no longer had to obey visiting hours or leave ID with a security guard just to see him.

The smell of bacon and the sizzle of it frying reached Ben. He'd hoped that his father's disappearance from the great room meant dinner, mainly so he wouldn't have to cook himself, and he straightened up without preamble to investigate what was being made. Ben tossed Riley the remote before he'd moved too far away and said, "No porn."

"Bite me," Riley threw back and Ben laughed, disappearing into the kitchen.

"I thought breakfast for dinner," Patrick said with a gesture toward the pans. "Bacon, sausage, eggs. I think I saw some english muffins in the fridge." He turned back to the bacon, pulling strips from the thin layer of oil and placing them on a paper-towel covered dish, and said to Ben, "I know we've never really been able to talk to each other, but I..."

The phone interrupted anything more. Ben sighed; he needed to talk to Patrick, but with the caller ID displaying the university's name, he couldn't simply ignore it.

"Benjamin Gates," he greeted, reluctantly, and listened to the head of the history department for a minute. He muttered, "Shit," under his breath and told the woman, "I'll be there in fifteen minutes, Gwen." Hanging up the phone, he turned to his father, "There's an emergency faculty meeting."

"Everything all right?"

"Two students died tonight," he admitted. The girls had been his advisees, wonderfully avid learners who had been a great help after he returned from his semester sabbatical, and they would not be in class the next morning. "They're assembling the staff to go over procedure," Ben added, glad he'd not yet taken off his jacket. "Can you hang around until I get back?"

"Yes, of course. Is there anything I should do?"

Ben shook his head. "I don't think so. Just make sure Riley eats something and takes his medication before he goes to bed." With no more instructions, he promised to return as soon as he could and slipped out the back door with car keys in hand.

"_He is the happiest who_

_finds peace in his home_."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -

The meeting had been straightforward: there would be a one week reprieve for the student population. Classes could be skipped for bereavement appointments; the teachers themselves would make the announcement to avoid the sterility of emailing though the latter would be done that afternoon. Ben made sure to note that they would be given the days of the funerals off, so the girls' friends could attend if they chose and as he made his way home, he detoured to stop for flowers at the same convenience mart he'd been in hours earlier.

He held the roses and calla lilies in one hand as he fumbled with the doorknob. A yawn escaped him, eyes closing, and when they re-opened, Ben found himself staring at his father. "Sorry, ran long."

"Obviously," Patrick joked, tiredly. He moved out of the way, letting Ben into the house and raised an eyebrow at the flowers.

Reaching into a cabinet, Ben only said, "For the girls' roommates." He set about filling the largest of his vases with water and setting the flowers within, his hands almost refusing to do what he needed. "Riley asleep?"

"Conked out a little while ago. I got him to have some toast and some bacon, and he took all of his pills so I didn't think I should force it." Patrick left out the conversation he'd carried on with Riley, an entire pad of paper used as they'd talked about life and family. It had truthfully been more for the younger man's benefit, letting off some of the anger that had filled him at the people he couldn't see or name.

There were so many things Patrick hadn't known that had come spilling from Riley, things that made his paternal side strengthen. He'd sat there reading the secret that Riley's biological parents had been deemed unfit after he was born addicted to crack cocaine and he hated that they had made him that way, his body now craving the morphine he'd been given in the hospital and in part causing his mood swings. How anyone could purposely hurt their unborn child was a question Patrick knew would never be answered.

"It's late. You don't have to drive home," Ben said, cutting into his thoughts.

"No, no." Patrick gave a small smile. "I'll be fine. You've got important things to do tomorrow and I'll just be in the way," he said, "Besides, I'm sure Riley would enjoy time alone with you. One of those relationship things that you're always claiming to not be good at." He chuckled at Ben's indignant sputter, saying his pleasantries and that he would be by the next day with lunch, before walking to the door and saying, "I think he'll be as good for you as you for him."

Alone in the kitchen then, Ben was still and tired and his mind was reeling. He bent over the sink, hands braced against the cabinets and breathed through the sudden rush of nausea, his attention so focused on not being ill that he never heard the footfalls.

Riley had fallen asleep on the couch and woken when the headlights of Patrick's Cadillac had illuminated every corner of the room. He'd assumed that if Patrick had gone, Ben should be home and padding into the kitchen Riley was glad to see he was right. Without thought, he walked right up to his friend and wrapped his hands around Ben's middle, laying his cheek against one broad shoulder. He wished he could ask if Ben was okay, if there was something he could do, but both would require moving and Riley didn't want to; the slow bleed of tension from the tall body made him smile.

Ben didn't startle when Riley wrapped around him, reaching to take the smaller hands in his and lacing their fingers together. He let the warmth of the tee shirt clad chest ground him, turning his head to nudge at Riley. Eventually, he turned in the hold and nuzzled the dark hair, wishing he didn't need to sleep as much as he did. That he could stand there with Riley until dawn.

With a push, the two parted and Ben said, "You're not not supposed to be standing up yet." He brushed his fingers down the side of Riley's face before adding, "And you should be in bed."

"I was in bed for months," Poole whined, and Ben wondered how Riley managed to convey that with fingers. Of course that made Ben frown as he thought over what he'd been told by the doctors, how Riley could still speak – clearly – if he wanted to: his voicebox wasn't damaged; he wasn't deaf and mute. "_Give it some time, Ben,_" Abigail had told him while they watched Riley sign paper after paper for his release, "_Imagine if you tried to speak and there was only silence._"

"And you still should be, Riley," Ben commented, feeling more parent than friend or lover at that moment. "Your muscles aren't used to the strain."

As if on cue, Riley was cut off from forming any letters as his knees buckled under him and Ben immediately reached out to stop the man from falling in a heap on the floor. He said nothing, instead giving Riley a look that spoke volumes, and, managing to balance himself and Riley on one foot, hooked a chair from the near by table to yank it over.

"Stay there for a second," Ben ordered as he turned to go in search of the hospital-issued wheelchair. He fought to keep his lips even, a mental cheer reverberating in his head that _Riley _had been the one to comfort him. Such had never happened in the past; Ben had gone so far to wonder if the Poole family had ever even hugged each other.

With the chair in tow, Ben returned to the kitchen and laughed when he saw that Riley had fallen asleep with his head back against the counter, one hand pressed to a cheek and the other flopped at his side. He smirked, prodding his friend awake and asked, "Don't need to rest, huh?"

His answer was a shrug and yawning, Riley shoved himself into the seat, closing his eyes for what he thought was a second but what apparently was longer if the amused look Ben was giving him was anything to go by. "Sorry," he signed, a small yawn escaping him and he reached out.

Riley was asleep within seconds of his head hitting the pillow, wishing he knew why he was so exhausted.


	5. Chapter Four

"_We are not put on Earth for ourselves,_

_but are placed here for each other."_

- Anon -

"So I was thinking..." Riley started a few weeks later, laying on the floor as he went through his home exercises. His new grown hair was limp against his head from the exertion, his leg sore as all hell. He'd finally gotten the cast off just a week after he was released, and begrudgingly Riley had started up the therapy to regain full strength and mobility. He hated being trapped in the wheelchair, so while he hated the daily torture that was the therapists manipulating his limbs, he would admit he felt better for it.

Ben teased, "That's never a good thing." He smirked then and leaned back, looking just as wrung out and tired as his friend, having been helping Riley through his routine.

"Ha, ha. I'm laughing on the inside."

"What have you been thinking about?" Ben asked after a moment, his signing still not perfect, but living with Riley meant he was immersed in it and they were able to understand each other well enough. He reached down to grip Riley's ankle, giving the younger man a minute of warning before bending Riley's leg at the knee and pushing back.

"For one, this sucks." Riley went limp as soon as Ben laid his leg back onto the floor, letting his hands go flat to the hardwood. He savored the coolness beneath his skin for a second, then went on, "I think you should kiss me." He smirked as he spoke and laughed when the blush rose from the collar of Ben's shirt up to his hairline.

"I don't know, Riley," Ben replied while he sat back on his feet, propping his back up against the couch and sighing. He'd wanted to go slow, wanted to really get to know Riley in ways he hadn't known any of his prior partners; he didn't want to doom their relationship from the get-go the way he had with Abigail by assuming things, by thinking he knew her. He still regretted their moving in together just weeks after they'd met, dreaming of marriage and children and a passionate life together, and discovering his ideas for the future and hers didn't match.

The face Riley made was followed by a stern, "Ben, kiss me."

And with a laugh at the demand, Ben nodded and reached out to take Riley's hands in his own and hefted the man upright, bringing them face to face. He shifted forward, settling Riley's thighs over his own and resisting the urge to pull the younger man completely into his lap.

It didn't escape Ben that he was sitting in perhaps the most romantic setting in his life with the room lit by firelight from both ends, the French doors flung open to let in some of the crisp spring air, and wine already out on a nearby side table in preparation of their evening movie. Less romantic was the fact that they were dressed in work out gear – jogging pants, tee shirts, and holed socks – and sweaty, their underarms and backs damp.

Still, Ben couldn't help the thought that popped into his head and he braced his hands on Riley's back, two sets of blue eyes watching the other. "Beautiful," Ben murmured, glad that Riley couldn't hear him issue the compliment, and finally pressed his lips to Riley's.

The kiss slowly evolved. Their lips, closed at first, parted at nearly the same time and Ben felt the tip of Riley's tongue against his own. His heart beat a bit faster as he realized that Riley was as nervous as he and maybe, a little scared. It eased the ache in his gut, the worry that Riley was using him for a mental rebound, because rebounds didn't normally concern themselves with such things.

"More," Riley mouthed a moment after they parted. His hands roved under Ben's shirt, rubbing tight circles around Ben's hips and his cock began to harden.

Whimpering into the next kiss, Riley closed his eyes tight and savored the taste of tea and cranberries underscored by something so perfectly Ben. '_Mine_,' he thought to himself, growing bolder and sliding his hands down past the waistband of his lover's pants.

"Whoa!"

Abigail's declaration broke the relative silence of the great room, and both men separated from the startling. Each looked decidedly guilty, causing the woman to laugh and remind them that she was no innocent in the room. "Just put a sock on the doorknob next time," she teased, bending over the couch back.

She'd come by to drop off the medication refills Ben had asked her to pick up on her way home from work, using her key to slip in with the intentions of leaving them in the foyer. However, not hearing the television or computer keys clicking had made her curious and she'd walked through the kitchen and dining room before finding the two men otherwise occupied on the floor.

"I left his meds in the kitchen," she grinned and as she turned to leave, she tossed out, "For the record, that was hot," with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. The door clicked behind her, and Ben's stomach untwisted and the ball in his throat dissipated.

He started thinking over what she had seen, mind jumping like an acrobat from thought to thought and he lifted his hands to speak only to have Riley clasp them in his own. Poole pulled them around his waist, waiting until Ben stopped trying to take them back and then moved both of his hands up to Ben's face. Their third kiss was soft, almost chaste and lasted only a few seconds, Riley nuzzling at his cheek and nipped at the warm skin there.

"Ri...christ, Riley!"

"What?" He asked, annoyed by the hand in the middle of his chest.

Ben cocked his head to the side and said, "Slow. The hands grabbing my ass? Not slow." He managed to keep his lips in an even line, not wanting to give away how much he'd enjoyed it. Sneaking one more quick kiss, Ben moved enough to get his feet under him and stood, "Come on, let's put on our movie."

Instantly, Riley began to pout. He was certainly not interested in a three hour long documentary on Benjamin Franklin when he could having the namesake and he said as much, not bothering to keep the leer off his face. He was quickly, lovingly rebuked; he countered with, "Then can we go to bed?"

"Bed? At eight?"

He nodded, never saying a word out of concern that he would reveal that he knew Ben was sneaking into his room at night, crawling into bed with him when Ben believed him asleep. He enjoyed being wrapped into his friend's arms, spooned together until nearly dawn when Ben would slip from the room to avoid being discovered, unaware that he'd already been detected.

"You feeling alright?" Ben asked as soon as Riley was on his feet, itching to feel his forehead for fever.

"Just tired," Riley lied, immediately caught if the look Ben gave him was anything to go by. His face twisted with frustration and he admitted, "I like when you get in bed with me."

Ben, truthfully, felt dumbfounded – he thought he'd been so careful about it. He hadn't wanted to scare Riley with the need to be close, wanting to stick to his desire to get to know Riley before they took anything further. Cuddling in the dark had seemed so tempting, so perfect, when Riley was asleep, like taking a bite from the forbidden fruit while there was no one there to see. "You knew?"

Riley shrugged in place of an answer and with a false start, told the other, "I don't really handle love well. My biological parents... well, they sucked at everything including love and my adoptive parents weren't big on it either. They thought that a pat on the head was just as good as a hug or a good job or a fucking I love you. But you don't freak me out like other people do, Ben. I don't know if it's because we've known each other for a while or what, but I like it when you touch me."

There was a moment of silence between them and Ben let Riley's words sink in. A warmth grew in the pit of his belly as he accepted what Riley was saying, his hand coming up to cup Riley's neck and pulling him close. His lips closed around the curve of an ear and Riley shivered from head to toe, thrusting hard against his lover's leg.

"Bed," Ben murmured and parted, creeping toward the messy guest room.

While nothing more intimate happened that night, Riley knew their relationship had certainly been taken to a new level. He fell asleep with that in his mind, his mouth curved into a happy smile.

"_Moving on is a simple thing,_

_what it leaves behind is hard."_

- Dave Mustaine -

They could have blamed it on the tragedy of Ben's students and appointments with a team – _team_ – of doctors and specialists. They could have blamed it on not knowing for sure that the elevator was fixed. Hell, they could have blamed it on pure laziness.

But both men knew why they'd waited to clean out Riley's apartment and it had little to do with outside forces. No, it had everything to with Riley being unable to face all the things that represented his former life.

In the weeks after his release, Riley had managed to avoid all need to go back to his home by purchasing new clothing, books, and in one notable instance, a laptop (which Ben made him return on the principle that Riley already had seven plus four desktops). He'd sold off the Ferrari which meant that they had only Ben's car to rely on when Abigail wasn't around – no extra car (despite the lack of packing space anyway) meant that unless there was an unexpected class cancellation and Riley had a gap in his therapy appointments, the apartment would remain on the backburner. And his rent was done electronically, direct from his bank account, thus no need to bring over cash or checks.

"Ben's parking the van. He'll be up in a second," Abigail told him as he started fumbling with his keys. There'd been so many added to the small keyring that finding his own was a lesson in deductive reasoning. He cursed under his breath, making a mental note to organize them better later.

Slowly, body thrumming with tension and hesitation, he popped the door open and only stared, as though fearing the interior.

"Riley," Abigail said.

His reply was succinct, "Let's just get this over with." He didn't want to be there, didn't like the way it made him feel, and hated that he couldn't have gotten away with paying someone to do this for him. Both his psychotherapist and Patrick had said it was something he had to do himself; Ben had been more than ready to hire a moving crew, relenting after a stern lecture from his former girlfriend.

It was, as he knew it would be, exactly as he'd left it that afternoon. There were dirty dishes sitting in the sink, papers spread out all over his coffee table with three laptops buried beneath it all, and from the glow of his stereo, Riley could see his Mozart CD had cycled endlessly, currently on track three. Clarinet Concerto Adagio, his favorite.

He marched over and stabbed at the power button, irrationally happy when the LED screen blacked out. He reveled in the feeling for a moment and when it at last left him, Riley glanced around at the bookcases, CD towers, and the overladen desk in the living room.

He had already decided to donate most of his furniture, but for a few pieces of personal value that Ben had promised they'd find room for, and the charity would come by themselves to pack it up the next day. The rest had to packed, padded, and stacked in the U-Haul which they would unload slowly over the following long weekend. Of course, his clothing and computers would be brought into the house first so Riley could finally have his home office set up.

"Riley, stop stalling," Ben told him when he walked into the room. He waited a moment, grinning when Riley stuck out his tongue and then moved back the hallway to drag an intermingled stack of cardboard boxes with **Eggs** and **Amy's Kitchen** written on the sides into the apartment before flinging the door shut.

"I am not stalling!"

"You know all you need is to stomp your foot and you'd look like you were twelve." He yanked one of the boxes free and passed it to Abigail who quickly disappeared into the bathroom, as he lifted his hands to speak, but was cut off when Riley turned his head away.

Ben sighed and started in on the kitchen, leaving Riley on his own though he knew it would result in an argument later.

The hours went by quickly, Riley never really noticing when his friend and his lover jumped from room to room, getting most of the small apartment squared away while he sat fingering the jewel cases. He'd sworn up, down, left, right, and center that he would be alright with it, alright with letting go of music – something he had enjoyed for the link it gave him to his parents.

Each year, Christmas had meant a trip to hear the New York Philharmonic play at Lincoln Center. It was the one time of the year where he could truly remember feeling that they loved him wholeheartedly, holding his mother's hand while they skated in Rockefeller before they made their way to the symphony. His father would wrap his own scarf around Riley's neck and wrap an arm over his shoulders to share stories and advice.

Saying goodbye to his collection was like saying goodbye to his parents all over again with the letting go of his Mozart and Bach and Pachelbell. Contrary to what he told most people, it wasn't the _night_ his parents died, it was the _nights_: his father had died on the ambulance ride to the hospital, having taken the brunt of the crash when the BMW had been t-boned by the semi. Why he hadn't died right at the scene, Riley only knew because he had known his parents well, and his father would have forced himself to live until he knew his wife was safe even if he was unconscious.

His mother had hung on several more days until her heart finally gave out, the internal bleeding never really stopped and the strain of it on her body too much for her to handle. He'd been with her at the end, humming a contrasting melody of the Hallelujah Chorus against the grim flatline, knowing it was her favorite part of Handel's _Messiah_.

Riley hadn't been able to listen to it for years afterward.

One by one the CDs he wasn't ready to do away with were placed neatly into a small box, his heart twisting with each. The rest were thrown into a black garbage bag in preparation for what he felt would bring him some closure, a carthesis of sorts.

"Should we tell him?" Abigail whispered, holding a box full of knick knacks wrapped in rags and papertowels.

The full boxes were set beside the door along with several of the smaller pieces of furniture, ready for Ben to begin the arduous task of packing the van. Riley's right arm had healed beautifully, only to wind up spraining it the day he received the all clear to start whittling down his physiotherapy, so he wouldn't be able to help too much and Abigail would try. At least she would until she got frustrated that Ben wasn't doing it her way and would go off to find something else to do.

"No," Ben decided. "He knows we won't leave him and I don't know why he's been focused on those discs the way he has, but it's got to be important – how often have we seen Riley sit still for anything?"

"Good point." She reached out for the nearest box and heard the sniffle first, the sob second.

It was a mild shock to both she and Ben to hear Riley cry, something he hadn't done once since the assault though he had more than enough reason to do so, and both stood rooted to the spot. Together they watched as Riley lifted a jewel case to his ear, holding it there as if it were a seashell and he could hear the phantom noise of the ocean within.

Ben's heart thudded faster, feeling like it were pounding against his ribs, and he forced himself to move, kneeling down behind Riley. Slowly, he shifted until his legs were straight along side his lover's, pulling Riley's back to his chest and holding on.

He hugged Riley tight when the younger man lisped, his voice different than it had been the last time he had spoken months earlier.

"Ev'ry mountain and hill made low, the crooked straight, and the rough places plain."

_Note: The epilogue to this fic is rated adult and as such is not appropriate for due to their guidelines. Should you like to read it it is on my livejournal community, cjs own. Thank you._


End file.
